George Otis Jr.
George Otis Jr. has produced the two Transformation Videos, and written about cities and communities being transformed by the power of God.
CALI, Colombia:
According to International Revival News (IRN), churches here are putting
aside their differences, and this is resulting in great revival. “Even death threats from Satanists can’t
stop the church in Cali,” said missionary and pastor Randy MacMillan.
Following the mysterious deaths of a number of
pastors last year, MacMillan, pastor of the city’s 1,500-member Christian Faith
Community Church survived several attempts on his life. One man wanted to kill him during a Sunday
service, but came up a few days later to confess that he had been paid by an
international group of Satanists to shoot MacMillan. “Something kept me from doing it,” he said.
The Columbian police consider the reports accurate
but don’t think it worth investigating.
MacMillan says the city, previously known as a violent drug trafficking
centre, is currently experiencing a Christian revival. The churches have a common vision, and the
effects of the Gospel are visible in government institutions, the drug world
and the crime scene. “All churches are
affected, and we all know that we are in a spiritual battle,” says
MacMillan. “There are so many new
believers that the church cannot keep pace.
Up to 50,000 people attend prayer rallies in the stadium.
It wasn’t always like that. For many years, we pastors didn’t see eye to eye—sometimes we
couldn’t even agree on where to meet.
In 1993, we decided to put these petty differences behind us and
unite. For example, we have elected 12
‘spiritual elders’ to deal with city concerns.”
video, continue to escalate, says George Otis Jr, director of The
Sentinel
Group.
The Lord has been working in these communities in a marvellous
way. The transformation that has been
reported is showing no signs of abating at all. I just received a phone report indicating that the move of God in
Cali has now begun to spread to other surrounding cities in the nation of
Colombia, which, as you probably know, is presently being wrapped with civil
unrest and violence at just a terrible level.
The entire soccer team associated with the City of Cali has now been
born again. This is the equivalent, for
us, to the New York Yankees all giving their hearts to the Lord Jesus Christ or
the Seattle Mariners all given faith in one fell swoop. It has really rattled the community down
there.
In addition to this, in a recent all night prayer vigil, they have
grown so large now that the football stadium there is now way too small for
them. In town there is this large a
open area (near the centre of the city) that is a park, kind of a mall. This is the only place now where they are
able to congregate.
There were over eighty thousand of these folks that gathered together
for the last all-night prayer vigil. As
you may recall, they have been doing this every ninety days since early
1995. So this had real staying
power. The mayor was at this particular
gathering and once again, reaffirmed, I guess in a very, very emotional way,
that the city of Cali, Colombia belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ.
They had just been given permission in the city of Cali to open the
first Christian television station in
the nation of Colombia. Cali used to be
the most violent and corrupt city in that nation. I like that turn-around.
I also learned that the city of Medellin, just a little farther north,
was the initial headquarters of the cocaine cartel before they moved to Cali,
and also served as a major centre for the production, processing and export of
heroin. Medellin is an extremely
dangerous city - a very large city, too.
What has happened in Cali has now spread and has gotten all over
Medellin, Colombia. They just recently
held a march through the city of over eighty thousand people proclaiming Jesus
as Lord and worshipping. The city
council there now, believe it or not, has banned the observance of Halloween
(it’s gone that far) because of its pagan origin. This just gives you a little bit of an idea of what is continuing
to happen.
We have also, now, personally developed a recent list of communities
that have been transformed in the last few years. That number that started with eight when we began our research,
now is at more than forty; this is a growing trend. We are seeing God not only continuing his work in the cities that
we have featured, but there are now dozens of additional communities around the
world that have recently been transformed by the
power of the Holy Spirit.
That’s still only the beginning of what God is doing today.
Just as you and I are getting used to this idea that God can transform
an entire city; not just grow a church in a community, but transform an entire
city, God is now off to the races doing bigger and better things than
that. This is, of course, in God’s way. You cannot keep up with him. As soon as you think you’ve got Him figured,
as soon as you think you have measured him, he’s moved beyond measure.
So, what we are seeing him do today is now moving into entire regions,
provinces, national homelands. In one
case, I believe we are about ready to see an entire nation on the verge of
being transformed. This is what we have
begun to film and will be the theme of the Transformations Two video
that we hope to release in 2001.
Source: Joel News, No. 336, 18 September, 2000 www.joelnews.org
© Renewal Journal #16: Vision (2000:2) www.renewaljournal.com
Reproduction is permitted so long as
the copyright acknowledgement remains intact with the text.
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